New Darkmoon Faire!

Yes, I’m loving the new Darkmoon Faire – fun mini games, dailies, heirloom/transmog gear for sale, a little profession boost and best of all – new pets and mounts to collect!

The island concept and “look” of it are fantastic – it has a “carnival” feel to it right down to the trash littering the paths.  You just know all the faire food is going to come back to haunt you.

It’s exactly what a faire should be – silly fun with tickets and prizes and lots of neat stuff to buy even if it will take a while saving up all those tickets since the faire only rolls around once a month.

But it’s bright, colorful and perfectly gaudy – who knows what the closed tents will have the next time the DMF comes to town?

Taking the Show on the Road

Yes, I played with the Sandbox Tigers and then I found a pony ride!  We finally get a pony (well, we sort of get one) and an achievement to go with it.

I Was Promised a Pony

One question though…how the heck do you get off those things?  No “X” I could find even resetting my UI because I thought an addon might have hidden it – had to click off the “buff” unless I’m missing something.

I think the “Wack a Gnome” game was changed to the more Politically Correct “Wack a Gnoll” although I was hoping more than a few times that I could “Wack a Horde” playing the same time as me – no particular reason, just because!

Ah yes…that reminds me I should also mention the DMF arena for the PvP fans.  I didn’t pay much attention to it so I don’t know how it works or what the prizes are, but you knew there was something going on with DMF chat de-evolving into standard Battleground chat with the usual…ummm…”brilliant” strategies, tactics and copious amounts of “waaaa.”

Fortunately we can turn off DMF chat and still have a great time.

Lots of new Achievements to get (although I’ll be skipping the PvP ones) – some are easy, some will require a little effort – I think I completed quite a few on my first visit.

I still don’t know everything the new DMF has to offer, and I found out by accident that there is a new pet and rare fish (added to the One That Didn’t Get Away Achievement) waiting to be caught in the waters around the island.

Fishing + a new pet?  You bet I’m there!  I only had a couple of hours to play last night so I ran straight to the DMF and started to fish for the pet.

So…a couple hours of fishing later I had caught:

• 175 Raw Rainbow Fin Albacore
• 64 Oily Blackmouth
• 11 Firefin Snapper
• 3 x Junkboxes (locked)
• 3 x Message in a Bottle – one containing the Schematic: Mechanical Squirrel Box
  

  Schematic: Mechanical Squirrel Box

I was also close to a wreckage pool that spawned a couple of times while I was there.  Most I fished out of it were two crates containing some useful “goodies” – elementium ore and embersilk cloth – along with some “delicious” DMF food!

I was determined to get that fishing pet so I kept on fishing and a few casts later fished up the new rare fish – Steelscale Crushfish.

Steelscale Crushfish

I already had The One That Didn’t Get Away Achievement so it didn’t “count” for anything, but at least it’s a One-Hand Mace I can equip!

Still no pet so I kept on fishing for about another 1/2 hour until I finally caught it.

Sea Pony

It’s a very cute little sea horse in a water “bubble” with a nice splashing animation when called – yes, we can have sea creature pets!

Sea Pony and Steelscale Crushfish

If I could change one thing about the DMF, it would be adding an auto-dismount near the game booths so players aren’t blocking everything and covering the NPCs with their mounts.

I guess dismounting is more challenging for some players than I expected…

Overall I had a lot of fun and will taking my alts through it since there is something to do for all levels – and it’s something to look forward to every month even if it’s just running the dailies to get those pets and mounts!